KEY POINTS:
Australian auction house Shannons is linking a 1935 Ford V8 Coupe it will offer for sale at the Melbourne motor show next week with infamous American gangsters Bonnie and Clyde.
But Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow were killed in a shoot-out with lawmen in 1934, many months before the Ford V8 Coupe was launched.
The car they were driving when they were ambushed in Louisiana was a four-door 1934 Ford sedan.
The actual link to the outlaws and Ford has more to do with the company's flathead V8 engine than the cars themselves.
Ford promoted the 1935 coupe and sedan range as having "Greater Beauty, Greater Comfort and Greater Safety" than the previous models, but it was the brisk performance of the 65kW flathead V8 that made Fords the getaway car of choice for gangsters in the early 1930s.
Ford first built the flathead V8 in 1932. Bonnie and Clyde met in West Texas in January 1930 but didn't embark on their murderous spree until two years later.
Over 24 months, they committed 13 murders, numerous kidnappings, and several robberies.
Clyde Barrow liked the V8 so much he wrote a letter to Henry Ford praising its performance. The letter is in the Henry Ford Museum, in Dearborn, Michigan.
It was posted from Tulsa, Oklahoma, a month before Barrow died, and said:
Dear Sir:
While I still have got breath in my lungs I will tell you what a dandy car you make. I have drove Fords exclusively when I could get away with one. For sustained speed and freedom from trouble the Ford has got every other car skinned and even if my business hasn't been strictly legal it don't hurt anything to tell you what a fine car you got in the V8.
Yours truly,
Clyde Champion Barrow
For all these reasons, the 1935 range represented a big advance over earlier models, making Ford the number one selling car in America that year, with production totalling 942,439 units. The Melbourne auction car, finished in royal blue with grey leather trim, has been updated to make it easier to live with day by day. Improvements include 12-volt electrics and hydraulic brakes.
Shannons expect it to fetch between $30,000 and $40,000.
The 35 Ford V8 is one of a handful of left-hand-drive American cars up for auction, including a 1955 Cadillac Series 62 Coupe and a 1962 Ford Thunderbird Coupe.
The Ford in which Bonnie and Clyde were killed was stolen from the driveway of Jesse and Ruth Warren in Topeka, Kansas. After the shoot- out, the car was returned to the Warrens, bullet holes and all.
Later, it was sold for US$3000 ($3716) and shown at state fairs and carnivals. A Las Vegas casino eventually bought it for US$250,000.
The lawmen, led by Texas Ranger Frank Hamer, fired 167 shots into the car. Bonnie was hit 23 times and Clyde 25 times.
Police listed the weapons found in the car after the shoot-out.
* Three 30-calibre Browning automatic rifles.
* One ten-gauge sawed-off shotgun.
* One twenty-gauge sawed-off shotgun.
* Six or seven Colt 45-calibre automatic pistols.
* One Colt 32-calibre automatic pistol.
* One Colt 38-calibre revolver or pistol.
* One Colt 45-calibre revolver.
* 2000-3000 rounds of ammunition
Police also recovered a saxophone.
